


Muddled

by Emery



Series: EruMike Week [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mike stays strong when Erwin cannot, mention of past hand jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emery/pseuds/Emery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin's scent is gone, muddled and obscured by things that shouldn't be, and when the commander suffers a mild emotional breakdown in his office, Mike knows that his concern isn't unwarranted. Among the pressures of the government and the fear of humanity's extinction, Mike struggles to find the Erwin he once knew and loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muddled

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** Scent.
> 
> Contains mention of events from [Just to See You Smile](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1256080).
> 
> Un-edited.

Over the years, Erwin’s scent had changed. The differences had been subtle at first, barely noticeable even to Mike’s over-sensitive nose.

Now, when the stakes were highest, the transformation was obvious.

After only a few agonizing seconds of watching Erwin pace to and fro in his dimly-lit office, disorganized stacks of paper behind him illuminated by the final rays of the sun pouring through the glass panes of the window, Mike felt like he had run for hours. It was exhausting to see Erwin like this. His eyes followed the commander from one end of the room to another and observed every tiny gesture—everything screamed of Erwin's instability. He was truly at his wits' end. Only a few times in his life had Mike ever seen Erwin this way, but every time was different. There was nothing to learn. Erwin was too unpredictable. Something that may have been successful as a calming gesture in the past would be just as likely to send Erwin into a rage, now, so Mike remained silent.

Standing tall and straight, legs slightly spread with his hands clasped tightly behind his back, Mike became the room's sole unmoving figure, everything else caught up in the cyclone of Erwin's anxiety. Papers on the desk rustled, the floorboards creaked beneath Erwin's shifting weight as he paced, and heavy footfalls of his boots echoed in the silence with every frustrated step. Mike wished he could understand Erwin and understand him _fully_. Certainly, he knew the trouble the Survey Corps was in. He knew that funds were too low and casualties too high. He had witnessed a portion of the government's lashing out at Erwin, had seen the headlines in the Capital's newspapers. Commander Erwin Smith of the Survey Corps had fallen from war hero to laughing stock in a matter of weeks, but Mike could tell by the way that Erwin's brows furrowed above the stormclouds in his eyes that all of those things only teased the surface of Erwin's problems. Most of the time, Mike could catch up. He wasn't the brightest, but he was smart enough, not to mention the most intuitive in the entire division, but at times like these, Erwin's massive intellect and whirlwind of thoughts left Mike in the dust, struggling to keep up.

He knew Erwin was analyzing—he always got like this when he analyzed in pinch, pacing and murmuring and wringing his hands in front of him like he couldn't be rid of the figurative blood that stained them.

There was something else, too, the most overwhelming of all—Erwin’s scent.

From their earliest days in training, Erwin's scent had been something easy for Mike to memorize, something sweet but powerful—intimidating but warm. Mike had grown addicted to the unique odor more quickly than he had ever grown attached to the signature smell of another human being. Erwin's scent had been his favorite, had been _his_. Even better was the way his and Erwin's scents mingled. Mike had never been fond of his own scent. Normal humans would call the sensation "self-loathing," but Mike thought of things differently. Combined with Erwin's inviting smell, though, Mike liked himself more. It was no trouble at all to commit the scents to memory, to remember every nuance and disguised component within the overall picture, to memorize the way the odor felt filling his nose and resting heavy in the back of his throat and on his tongue.

Mike knew Erwin's scent better than anyone's. He trusted himself to never confuse it or taint with the traits of another, and he wouldn't. He _couldn’t_. But as the years had passed and the promotions come, one after another, landing Erwin in this office behind a massive mahogany desk with a revered title before his name, Mike had begun to lose track of the smell he had once known and loved.

As long as Mike had been alive, this had never happened. He had seen people come and go, grow and change, but their scents had always been the same.

This case, Erwin's, was much different.

One footfall too many pounded upon the wooden floor and assaulted Mike's ears, and he couldn't take anymore.

"I need orders, sir."

The moment the words left his mouth, Mike regretted them.

Erwin halted with shocking abruptness and slammed his palm down onto his desk. The action was jarring enough to loosen Erwin's neatly coiffed hair from its part, and messy locks of pale blond invaded the usually clear space of his forehead. "I don't _know_!" he screamed.

Mike swallowed past the lump in his throat, struggled to keep his feet planted. He grasped his fingers more tightly together behind his back to relieve the temptation to reach out to Erwin when clearly he wanted no part of it—or did he?

Erwin's breaths came in ragged gasps. His broad shoulders, usually straight and confident, heaved with every uncertain gasp for oxygen.

Mike's heart was breaking.

"I don't _know_ anymore. I'm out of answers, Mike!"

"What can I do?"

"There's nothing."

"That's not true."

There had been a time when Mike would not have dared to question his commander. Erwin was usually right—more than once, during harrowing missions outside the walls, Mike had deemed his intuition worthy enough to overcome his commander's orders. He had learned quickly that, despite the accuracy of his gut's instincts, Erwin's contextual decisions were always more productive and, more importantly, more life-saving.

Erwin stared at him with disbelief, but Mike refused to shrink beneath the stabbing glare of disapproval.

Mike used the momentary silence to his advantage, utilizing the calm amidst the storm. He knew that Erwin was watching as he took a tentative sniff of the office air. There were the usual smells, of course—parchment and ink and the musk of old, classified documents that only a select few had the privilege of opening. Of those select few, Erwin was often the only one that cared, and so there they lay, years old reports gone unheeded and unnoticed by generations of officers but never left behind by Erwin, because every clue was needed, every piece of information was valuable.

The window was drafty. Wind rustled the curtains and curled a few leaves of parchment, but also brought with it scents from outside—dirt, sweat from the training grounds below, the dense, sweet smell of rain settling in the clouds a few miles away.

There was death, too, dark and heavy and overwhelming—nothing tangible but still maintaining the most demanding presence in the room.

However, all of these things were commonplace, things that Mike blocked out when he took a second whiff.

Erwin opened his mouth to speak. Surprisingly, Mike's glower silenced him. Even when furious and delirious with anxiety, Erwin knew Mike well enough to know that words would distract him, and there was something Mike was trying to find. The impatience was obvious on the commander's face and made even clearer by the way he crossed his arms across his chest and tapped his foot like a jackrabbit, but Mike swore he would get to the bottom of this.

The remaining scents, the ones that belonged to Erwin, were muddled and runny, and only a tiny fraction of the mismatched mixture was even _vaguely_ reminiscent of the smell that Mike used to know and love so well. The rest was only tainting that tiny wisp of pureness remaining, obscuring it so much that it was barely there. Had Mike's eyes been closed, he might not have even known that Erwin was in the room at all. He frowned, nose and brain and instinct working in tandem.

Erwin's second outburst told Mike that he had had quite enough.

"Your goddamned _nose_ isn't going to do a bloody thing, you know."

 _Will it not, Erwin?_ Mike wondered.

"I've got _real_ problems now. _Adult_ problems. I'm an _officer_. My life is going to _shit_. Is that what you smell, Mike? Shit?"

Erwin's rage was frightening, to be sure, but it was nothing that Mike couldn't handle—he hoped.

Inhaling a deep breath not to smell, but to calm his nerves, Mike began cautiously. "I'm aware your situation is dire. I'm _also_ aware," he added before Erwin could protest, "that I don't understand its true extent."

The admittance seemed to appease Erwin at least slightly.

"But there are some things that _you_ don't seem to be aware of, _Commander_."

Mike watched Erwin's nose wrinkle at the derogatory way Mike had spat the title.

Erwin's rank may have been higher, but Mike maintained that they were equals. Erwin should have known that, and Mike was disappointed that he seemed to have forgotten.

 _Add pride to the list of things spoiling your scent, Erwin,_ Mike thought bitterly.

"And what are those, eh? What in this godforsaken world could I possibly _not_ be aware of?" Erwin gestured wildly to the reports and newspapers that crowded his desk, taunting him, degrading him, informing him of how he'd murdered hundreds in cold blood.

“You don’t seem to understand,” Mike continued, treading carefully but firmly into dangerous realms. “That you’re not the only one whose sanity is at stake here, and I’m not talking about the families of the soldiers you’ve lost.”

Erwin pursed his lips and lifted one eyebrow.

With a sigh, Mike gathered his words and his courage. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken so much at once—usually his quietude was sufficient, especially around Erwin. Mike could read everyone and Erwin had learned to read Mike, so there was never much use for extensive conversation. Mike liked it that way, and Erwin didn’t seem to mind.

Now, everything Mike cherished was crumbling.

“I can’t stand to see you like this.” The assertion was selfish, but Mike didn’t care. “You’re changing, and I’m scared for you. I’m scared for every soldier under your command. I’m scared for _humanity_. We had a capable leader once. What do we have, now?”

The anger disappeared from Erwin’s face, replaced instead with parted lips and a blank expression.

“ _What do we have now, Erwin?_ ” Mike prodded through gritted teeth as he took a step forward and balled his fists at his sides.

The room was too silent. There were no more angry footfalls. The wind had died down, eliminating the sound of papers rusting in the drafts of cool air.

“You don’t smell the same,” Mike continued. It was difficult not to grin at the look on Erwin’s face, but this was a serious moment. It had always been amusing—Erwin’s reaction to Mike’s comments on his sense of smell.

“And that means…?”

“It means you’ve got to get a damned hold of yourself.”

Giving orders wasn’t Mike’s strong suit, but he understood that it was more necessary now than ever before. Someone had to rescue Erwin from the grave he was digging himself, and it certainly wasn’t going to be that piece of shit thug that the commander had latched so tightly to. Mike and Levi tolerated each other, shared a silent and mutual respect, but Mike would always remain wary of the captain. In Mike’s mind, only he could be trusted to care for Erwin properly, if only because he had known him longer.

Finally, Mike dared to take steps forward towards Erwin, stepping quietly despite the heaviness of his tall, muscled frame. He reached out with both hands, palms raised—a peaceful approach—and Erwin did not object when Mike let those strong, calloused hands rest on Erwin’s shoulders.

They were close now, their faces only inches apart. Erwin’s scent smelled even more contradictory than before.

Mike was reminded of the stupid dares he and Erwin and the other kids would come up with during their time as trainees. There were nights in the mess hall when the guys were starved for something fun and exciting, lulled into boredom by hours of training and relentless drills. That was when the idiocy happened. Every food and drink imaginable was mixed into a cup—a conglomeration of broth, potatoes, beer, milk, tomatoes—whatever happened to be on the trainees’ plates that night found its way into a single container. There was a new victim every night, the one deemed to drink the harmless yet foul concoction in some stupid display of manhood.

Erwin, too, reeked of unsuited combinations and strong, conflicting odors, just like the cup of mystery mash that Mike swore was responsible for making him sick on more than one occasion.

“Sit down, Erwin.”

The smaller man shrugged his shoulders violently and rolled his neck, as if Mike’s touch disgusted him.

“Erwin—“

“Don’t treat me like a child.”

“There’s something else you seem to have forgotten in all of this, Erwin,” Mike said, more quietly now, like Erwin was a small and fragile animal that would be startled by any noise above a whisper.

Erwin huffed and walked around his desk. He dropped down into his leather seat and propped held his chin in his hand, his elbow propped unceremoniously on the desk atop a stack of papers gone temporarily unnoticed.

 _Like a child, indeed_.

“You seem to forget that the whole world isn’t against you.”

“Is it not?”

“Let me finish.”

More begrudging silence.

Suddenly, Mike felt too tall. He considered kneeling in front of Erwin, but with the mood Erwin was in, he would likely only make some snide remark about how this wasn’t the time for a fucking marriage proposal. Sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the desk from Erwin seemed too formal. Instead, he chose to perch himself on the desk, facing away from Erwin.

He didn’t need to see him to understand the situation, anyway, and maybe by avoiding the surly look on Erwin’s face, this whole ordeal wouldn’t hurt so much.

“Have you forgotten me?”

“What? _No_ —“ Mike could hear the confusion in Erwin’s response, but he didn’t wait for anything further.

Gripping the edge of the desk so tightly that his knuckles turned white, Mike made himself continue calmly. “Because it seems like you have. It seems like you’ve forgotten that you can share the burden. I’ve been watching from the sidelines too long, and I can’t just _watch_ anymore.” Mike breathed deeply and took the second his breath occupied to race through a plethora of thoughts and ideas. He wanted to lighten the mood.

“Do you remember that night, Erwin? The first night we kissed?”

He heard Erwin’s rough grunt of affirmation. “The same night you jacked me off in my sleep.”

“You were awake.”

“Barely.”

Mike grinned when he remembered the following morning, when Erwin had thought that his wet dream had been about Mike, barely remembering that Mike’s assertion of himself into the dream had been all too real.

Mike was surprised when Erwin was the next to speak. “Do you remember the look on Nile’s face when he found out?”

“Priceless,” Mike commented.

The tension in the room was still palpable, but lightening.

Erwin remarked, “I think he was jealous.”

“I think he still is.”

Mike sniffed to confirm something, and it was true. Erwin’s scent was winning out, even if just a little. It was _there_ at least, struggling to break free from the confines of the other heady scents—fear and pride and brokenness.

“Bastard doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Erwin said wryly, sarcastically. Nile’s decision to join the Military Police had thrown everyone off guard. Mike remembered those times and how difficult they had been for Erwin, for Nile, for everyone, really.

“As long as he’s happy,” Mike sighed.

“I wish I could be happy.”

Mike hoisted himself up off the desk and back onto his feet, walking around to the other side of the furniture and murmuring, “You can be,” while bending down to take Erwin’s gaunt—since when had he been so thin?—cheeks between his hands. So quickly that Erwin had no time to protest, Mike pushed his lips to Erwin’s and held him there. The action wasn’t romantic, wasn’t sentimental—just _urgent_ , sending Erwin a message the only way Mike could be sure that he would listen.

Seconds seemed like hours when Mike straightened and waited for a reaction, but he received none. No action was needed, though, when an overwhelmingly pleasant scent greeted him instead.

It was Erwin.

Still not as pungent as he had been in the past, but just enough to win out amongst the other smells that subtracted so much from Erwin’s uniqueness, Mike’s favorite smell tickled his senses and curled the corners of his lips into a smile.

The progress was tiny but significant, just enough to know that Erwin was still with him. It was hard, nowadays, to find time for affection amongst the chaos their lives had become, but as long as Mike could still smell what remained of their memories and their fondness for one another, he would force himself to be content. Erwin was not lost to him, Mike convinced himself, as long as that scent remained.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having a great time with EruMike Week so far, and I hope you are, too! Be sure to leave some feedback in a comment below, especially if you have constructive criticism or helpful suggestions. 
> 
> Also, don't forget to come [follow me on Tumblr](http://emeryylee.tumblr.com)!


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